Is it Safe to Date if You're Queer and Have Homophobic Parents?

found there to be "low" overall acceptance for LGBTQ people in Chile, noting that the country is only about "halfway" to full social acceptance. In a small city, far away from the center of Chile’s LGBTQ community in Santiago, I can imagine how isolating it might feel to be gay.

If you did decide to embark on this romance, you’d have to ask yourself how far you think your parents would take their homophobia. You’re in the best position to evaluate your risk: Do you have good reason to believe that your parents would actually kick you out if they discovered you were gay? Have you heard them explicitly say anti-gay comments? If not,be an option to consider.

But something about the words in your letter — “really homophobic” — tells me you’ve been closely observing your parents, and your gut tells you it’s not safe. If this is the case, keep in mind that any same-sex relationship you pursue would need to be absolutely secret. You’d have to keep texting and any other physical evidence of your relationship far away from your parents. You’d never be able to fool around in your house.

And you’re right to intuit that secrecy would infiltrate your relationship dynamic. It wouldn’t “necessitate a failed relationship,” McClintick says — secrecy is a common part of being gay for many people around the world, and some stay together under the radar for decades — “but it certainly doesn’t make it easy.

All that said, even with all these risks, my answer isn’t “don’t do it.” There are risks to depriving yourself of happiness, too. There’s an emotional toll to staying isolated and repressed, a toll that might be worse than the stress of dating while closeted. McClintick says that an overwhelming amount of young people she counsels at the LGBT Center have suicidal thoughts, and “a lot of that comes from feeling lonely and like you don’t have an outlet.

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